


Broken, Unbowed

by tarsier_audacity



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, I also know very little about fighting and boxing, I write them then release them into the wild as nature intended, Not Beta Read, Pre-Canon, and it shows, maybe he's OOC and that's on me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarsier_audacity/pseuds/tarsier_audacity
Summary: Who exactly is Henry Hogfish? Fuck if he knows.A character study of one Henry Hogfish. Before Fia and Zirk, after the fallout, and tucked somewhere between Scaletip Valley and Thornkirk.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Broken, Unbowed

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever attempt at fanfiction and narrative character study. Gods help me. Also, I accidentally made Henry a bit of a drunk. Sorry, Jake.
> 
> Title is inspired by Invictus by William Ernest Henley, especially this line: "Under the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed."
> 
> I was listening to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTmaq4xerU) while working on this.

Henry Hogfish enters a tavern that's a little ways away from Scaletip Valley. It's supper time and every corner of the place is too loud, too bright, and too busy. Henry manages to make his way to the bar and signal for a drink. The barkeep slides him a tankard of strong ale and moves to attend to other customers.

Henry takes a long, deep pull of the drink, almost as if inhaling it. He signals for another one and after that, another one.

It doesn’t take too long until he’s starting to feel a little bit better. Better because now a sense of lightness is starting to kick in, soothing the pain of recent misfortunes. Maybe a couple more will numb him to a point where he can sleep tonight dreamless and with some measure of temporary peace.

He downs another tankard, quicker than the previous ones. _This is good stuff_ , he thinks; he’ll worry about the money for the rest of his travel later.

Henry is well on his way to being piss drunk when the noise breaks into his drunken haze. He looks around and sees people gathered in a corner, cheering and heckling.

He ambles over to the spot, jostling with people in the crowd too absorbed in spectacle, to see that they managed to make some sort of boxing ring. Henry watches, amazed by the two duking it out as if they were warriors in an arena rather than… well, two people boxing in the corner of a tavern.

The one on Henry’s left lands a hard blow on his opponent, the smack of his fist connecting with the man’s face is audible and enough to make some of the watchers wince. The opponent goes down and the crowd erupts with rowdy cheer. _Must be a favorite or a defending champ_ , Henry thinks.

The appointed referee calls for new challengers, any challenger. Henry finds himself muscling the rest of the way to the front and answering the call. He can hear people snickering; he’s miserably average in all the ways that mattered and he’s already drunk. The defending champion eyes him with derision. Easy pickings.

They do the bare minimum pre-fight stuff and then they get right to it. The champion starts swinging immediately, forcing Henry into going on the defense. Henry, for his part, ducks and bobs and weaves between the punches. He’s drunk for sure, but he’s still lighter on his feet than most people think him to be.

Henry gets a few hits in but what the champion lacks in grace, he more than makes up for in sheer force and strength. It’s not long before the landing blows start to feel heavier and heavier, but Henry’s still standing.

For the first time tonight, Henry thinks this may have been a bad idea.

But there’s not much to do between this huge brick of a man and the crowd trapping him in, so he keeps on avoiding as many punches as he can and lands a couple of his own. The fight stretches on for longer than Henry thought it would go and the crowd is getting more listless. They’re shouting at the champion to finish him and it sparks a frenzy in his opponent. The attacks are getting sloppier but he’s putting his weight into his punches and Henry doesn’t know how much more he can take before he goes down.

As it turns out, an accidental but well-placed blow to the head was the answer to that particular question.

Henry goes down and the crowd _roars_. He’s lying down, cheek pressed to the ground, about to close his eyes when the referee yanks him up and out of the makeshift ring. Someone — Henry can’t remember who or whether it was out of pity or just not wanting to clean up even more blood off the floor — sits Henry unto a chair and tosses him a rag to clean the sweat and blood.

He sits there in a daze with the towel slung on his shoulder. He stares into the middle distance, breathing slowly, starting to feel his body hurt. He breathes for a little while. He starts dabbing at the blood and thought crosses his mind: _this is the first time you didn’t run away from the fight_. He stops midway tending to his wounds and focuses on the now-bloodstained cloth. _You didn’t run away_. Not like he had a choice: if he tried, the crowd would turn into a mob and then he’d be dead, a nameless corpse in a nameless place. So he stood there, did the best he could, took the punches he couldn’t block or move away from, and now it’s over and he can go.

It’s over and he needs to go.

He sets the cloth on the table and stands up. The next thing he knows, he’s limping out the tavern, bag slung over the less fucked up shoulder. He doesn’t know where he’s headed but all he knows right now is the buzz of intoxication, the ache of his body put through the wringer, and the weight of sorrow pushing him forward and away from where his life once was. He vaguely remembers knowing someone in Thornkirk, and starts to head in that direction. Maybe he’ll stop by an inn on the way or pass out in a field somewhere; it doesn’t really matter much at this point.

Henry steps onto the beaten road and moves forward. For once, he doesn’t look back.


End file.
